Constantly changing productivity targets which made it difficult to maintain the same level of pay let alone achieve the higher levels. This also led to many people sacrificing quality to achieve the higher numbers which overall made the job more difficult. Custom Ink just laid off 2 warehouses earlier this year so it was no surprise when they started laying off artists as well which will be happening at different “exit” dates throughout the year. They use the term “right sizing” to describe these layoffs which not only lacks empathy but is incredibly insulting to the artists being let go and those that remain. They plan to lay off over half of their art department and will be making additional cuts to other departments as well. Earlier this year and last year they were actively stating that there wouldn’t be cuts and that the over staffing in our department was intentional- obviously that was just to keep us working hard until they no longer needed us. They are actively replacing US employees with offshore ones to reduce the cost of labor. They’re also using an excessive amount of automation which will obviously cut into the quality and integrity of the experience and goods that the customer receives. It constantly felt like I was on the chopping block and I was actually told by one of the higher ups that job security was an “unreasonable expectation”. Mind you I worked at this company for 7 years which normally should allow some level of job security by nature. Beware of the positive reviews shown as some are clearly written by bots or employees that have been encouraged to make 5 star reviews to mitigate the influx of very valid negative ones. The CEO went from being a likable and empathetic leader to a reckless and robotic overlord. He lashed out whenever employees were upset and would send unhinged “update” emails to the entire company to try and convince us that the state of the business was fine. It honestly felt embarrassing to read them.
